Heart's Demand (7 page)

If he was an orphan with a catastrophe in his background, there could be no continuing connection. She desperately needed a friend, and it had been an eternity since notions of amour had been stirred.

Perhaps they could have a wild fling while they were both trapped in Egypt. Perhaps the desert would push them to improper conduct that she’d always deeply regret but fondly recall. She’d read about people who engaged in passionate dalliances during their travels. Evidently when one was away from home and removed from the regular rules about decorum, one was freer in his actions.

Would she ever dare entertain an immoral liaison? She doubted it, but it was humorous to consider. If she ever
was
interested, he would definitely be the man with whom she’d choose to misbehave.

“How do you occupy yourself in London?” she asked.

“Shall I shock you and admit it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m a renowned scalawag.”

He seemed so stable and well-adjusted. She couldn’t imagine him involved in frivolous pursuits. Loyally she declared, “Who says you are? I refuse to believe it.”

“No, I’m awful. I gamble—”

“Most gentlemen do.”

“And I supplement my income by acting on the stage.”

It was the last comment she’d anticipated, and she was so disappointed to hear it. Actors were deemed to be the most depraved scoundrels in the world. There was no worse statement he could have offered to prove how they should never have even the slightest cordiality.

“On the…stage?” she wanly said.

“Yes. I told you I’d shock you.”

“I’m not shocked. I’m…I’m…ah…I guess I
am
shocked.”

“My mother was a gifted actress and singer. I take after her.”

“You sing too?”

“And I play the pianoforte. I’m quite extraordinary, but I like to announce my low habits right up front. It keeps misconceptions from forming.”

“Yes, I can see that it would.”

“It helps me to discover whether someone is a genuine friend or not.”

He studied her, and it was obvious he’d issued a challenge. He’d pegged her as the kind of female who would judge and condemn over his circumstances.

Would she?

Was she the snob he pictured her to be? Would she snub him because he had talents that branded him as being too far beneath her lofty self? Or was she better than he assumed?

She wasn’t
lofty
anymore, but she’d had a lifetime of pomposity drilled into her. She was struggling to adapt, and she liked to hope she could befriend a remarkable person despite how he earned his living. She liked to hope she could overlook the vast differences separating them and establish a solid bond. Why couldn’t she?

As Pippa constantly reminded her, she was no longer a royal princess. She had to adjust her standards, had to learn how to mingle with and care about all sorts of people. Not only those with blue blood running in their veins.

“I was raised to be a terrible snob,” she said.

“I can tell that about you.”

“But I’m trying to change.”

He nodded. “Change is always good.”

“I’ve never chatted with an actor before.”

“Well, I’m not much of an actor these days. I’m changing too, remember? I’m trying to be an adventurer, but I’m not having much luck at it.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It appears to me that you’re having an enormously grand adventure. You’ll still be bragging about it when you’re old and gray. Your grandchildren will be so weary of your stories about your sojourn in Egypt that they’ll refuse to be in the same room with you lest you start in with another tale of your daring-do.”

He chuckled. “I’m sure you’re correct. When this is all over, I’ll likely reflect on it with relish. At the moment, it seems a bit dire.”

“You’ll get through it.”

“Yes, I will.”

“Have you asked Valois for funds to pay your passage home?”

“I wouldn’t offend him. He’s been very gracious, and so far I haven’t overstayed my welcome. But I’m certain if I began begging him for money, I’d rapidly find myself shown to the door.”

“Maybe you should search for an heiress and marry her. Isn’t that what desperate gentlemen usually attempt?”

“An…heiress,” he mused as if he’d never previously considered the notion. “Yes, that’s precisely what I need. How about you? Are you rich? Should I seduce you to grab hold of your fortune?”

“After that question, if I was wealthy I wouldn’t admit it.”

“I’ll expose all your secrets. Just you wait and see.”

“I will never tell them to you, so you shouldn’t expect to ever unravel them.”

“I’m already making progress.”

“How?”

“You just confessed to having secrets. Earlier, didn’t you claim you had none?”

“I am merely a widow who’s come to Egypt to visit my uncle. That’s it.”

“Liar.”

Before she realized what he intended, he leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. It was quick and brief and very, very dear, and she was so surprised that she didn’t try to deflect it.

He hovered an inch away, and she was flummoxed and amazed. They’d been pleasantly conversing, sharing confidences, and she’d been unaware that he was contemplating such a brazen deed. She thought she should probably be irked by his audacity, but she wasn’t irked in the least.

She was smiling, wishing he’d do it again.

“You fascinate me, Kat,” he said.

“I can’t imagine why.”

“You’re smart and beautiful and mysterious and very alone. How could I not be fascinated?”

“What made you suppose I’d like to be kissed by you?”

“Every woman I’ve ever met has yearned to be kissed by me. And they all had that opinion even before I became tough and dangerous.”

His boasts had her laughing. “Each and every one of them yearned to be kissed?”

“Yes, and you’re not so very different from all the rest.”

“You’re wrong about that. I’m totally different from anyone you’ve ever encountered.”

“I plan to eventually discover exactly what that means.”

He kissed her again, his chest crushed to hers, his body pressing her into the bench. His lips were soft and warm, and he felt so good and smelled so good. She was overwhelmed by him, by the night, by the reckless energy that had been surging through her all evening.

There was no predicting what she might have allowed, but apparently he had better sense than she did. He stroked his palms up her arms, over her shoulders and neck, then he wrenched away, almost as if he had to force himself to stop.

“Let’s get you inside so you can speak with Valois.”

“I’m scheduled to talk with him, aren’t I?” But she didn’t move, didn’t ease him away. “My head is spinning, Bryce. You have me completely discombobulated.”

“Of course I have. I just kissed you twice. It’s difficult to proceed rationally after such an exciting event has occurred.”

She laughed again, which seemed to be her regular condition when she was in his presence. He was vain and funny and charming, and she was so lucky to have met him. Her angels had definitely been guiding her when she’d been tossed into his path.

Her fondness couldn’t lead anywhere though. Yet must it lead somewhere? Couldn’t she simply welcome his friendship? Couldn’t she lean on him during this period when she was so weary and troubled? Where was the harm in that? It wasn’t as if a room of Parthenian chaperones was watching her every second.

She was a twenty-five-year-old independent female who’d recently lived through the most trying of times. Why shouldn’t she seize a bit of joy? Why shouldn’t Bryce Blair grow as close as he liked? She knew all the appropriate boundaries and would never permit him to cross them.

He stood and helped her to her feet, and she was stunned to find that she was sad at having their amorous rendezvous conclude. If he hadn’t insisted they return to the villa, she’d have been happy to dawdle all evening.

She’d been kissed in the moonlight! By a handsome, dynamic hero and champion. By an actor! She’d understood that strange incidents would be possible in Egypt, but clearly she’d had no idea.

He bent down and whispered, “I’m going to kiss you again before the night is over.”

“Only if I let you,” she saucily retorted. My goodness, but she was flirting! She hadn’t thought she knew how.

“You’ll let me. You won’t be able to resist.”

She clutched the front of his shirt and rose on tiptoe to place her own kiss on his lovely lips. “You might be correct, Mr. Blair. Perhaps I shall never be the same.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“Hello, Mr. Hubbard.”

Pippa smiled at Chase Hubbard, and as he smiled back, she decided he was the handsomest fellow to stroll down her road in ages.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, tan and fit. His hair was dark, his eyes blue, and his face was clean shaven, which delighted her. In Parthenia, most men wore beards, partly for fashion and partly to ward off the cold weather. But she always appreciated a man who regularly used his razor.

They were out on Valois’s verandah, with the other guests inside chatting, playing cards, or listening to a trio of musicians in the music room.

She’d come out to see where Kat had gone and had arrived to observe her walking into the garden with Mr. Blair. To Pippa’s amazement, they shared an attraction that had been so evident it had been blatantly noticeable.

She’d been Kat’s best friend for twenty years, and in all that time, Kat had never been smitten. In light of her rank, dalliances weren’t possible, so she likely had no idea that she and Mr. Blair were so compatible, and Pippa wouldn’t inform her either.

Kat needed to loosen up, to stop being such a prude and a shrew. She was no longer a princess, and she had to climb down off her high horse. Maybe if Mr. Blair flirted with her, she’d start to focus on someone other than herself.

“Pippa is an unusual name,” Mr. Hubbard said. “What does it stand for?”

“Phillippa, but I could never pronounce it when I was little. I could only say Pippa, so it stuck. Please don’t ever call me Phillippa. It sounds much too old and stuffy.”

“Well, I would have called you Miss Clementi, but if you insist, I’m sure I can make it Pippa instead.”

“My, my, but aren’t you bold. Why would you think I’ll let you act so familiarly?”

“I can tell by looking that you’re the sort of female who refuses to be trapped by convention.”

“You might be wrong about that. I’m certain I’m the most conventional woman who ever lived.”

“Shall we bet on it?”

“Are you a gambler, Mr. Hubbard?”

“Yes. I wager on everything.”

“Why would you?”

“Because I generally win, so why wouldn’t I?” He grinned a cocky grin. “Why are you in Egypt? Bryce mentioned a visit to Miss Webster’s uncle.”

“Yes, he’s a fanatic about all these ancient ruins. He’s been here for decades.”

“What spurred your journey? You’re from America? That’s quite a voyage merely to speak with a relative.”

“Kat recently had a spot of trouble. She’s determined to seek his advice.”

“She must want it very badly if she’d come all this way.”

“She’s a bit mad on the subject actually. I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t listen.” Pippa frowned. “Forget I said that. She’s always been stubborn. When she gets a wild idea, there’s no dissuading her. It won’t help matters to have me complaining and second-guessing.”

“My lips are sealed.”

He leaned against the balustrade and gazed out at the Nile. The moon was up, full and round and glowing an eerie shade of orange. The color, the tropical foliage, the sultry temperature all made her eager to misbehave, and she was no better than she had to be.

She’d nearly wed when she was eighteen. Her dashing, foreign swain had burst into court and swept her off her feet. Unfortunately he’d thought she was a royal cousin, had thought she had a huge dowry.

For the most part, Kat’s father had been kind and generous. Pippa had become his ward when she was five and her parents had died of the influenza. Her own father had been a minor Italian composer, not revered or renowned, so there had been no assets when he’d passed on.

Her father and Kat’s had been friends when they were boys, with the King not even realizing he’d been appointed her guardian until she’d shown up at court. He’d taken her in and, in many ways, treated her as a daughter.

Yet he’d been obtuse too. It had never occurred to him that she could have used a dowry or that he should supply one. If Kat’s mother had survived, she might have pushed him into it, and Pippa hadn’t known how to suggest it herself.

Once her elegant beau had learned of her low status, he’d sneaked away in the middle of the night and she’d never seen him again. Of course by then, she’d been good and truly ruined, and she’d been lucky no babe had caught in her womb.

But she’d enjoyed the physical aspect of romance, so she’d conferred with a local midwife who’d taught her how to avoid a babe. Then she was able to dally occasionally. She picked visitors who were traveling through Parthenia, who would stay a short while, then move on.

She’d participated in many unsavory affairs, and she had no illusions about her character. She was easy and loose, her head always turned by a pretty face. Mr. Hubbard was just her cup of tea, and she was already figuring out how she could trifle with him before Kat dragged her off to the desert.

“Your last name is Clementi,” Mr. Hubbard said. “Are you of Italian heritage?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get to America? Were you born there?”

Clearly he was about to launch into a lengthy diatribe of questions about the journey, about life on the other side of the sea, and Pippa bristled with frustration. She’d told Kat not to claim they were from Boston. If they’d simply pretended to be from a small village in Italy, no one would have cared about the details, and she wasn’t about to tiptoe into Kat’s idiotic web of lies.

“It’s a long story, Mr. Hubbard. I might tell it to you someday if you’re very, very nice to me.”

She’d imbued her tone with a hint of the flirtation she hoped to eventually have with him. His brows shot up, his curiosity piqued.

“I can be
very
nice,” he said.